Monday, February 23, 2015

The Importance and Problem of Being Tayeba Begum Lipi

(Tayeba Begum Lipi, Bangladesh artist)

Internationally acclaimed artist, Tayeba Begum Lipi could be
Bangladesh’s answer to India’s Subodh Gupta. That definition is possible and
viable only if we take too much pride in our nationalisms. When I look at the
works of Begum Lipi at the Shrine Empire Gallery, New Delhi, in her minimal
solo show titled ‘Reversal Reality’, I am reminded of our own Subodh Gupta not
because her works resemble Gupta’s works or aspire to become those works by any
means, the feel that exudes from those works somehow calls for drawing such a
parallel. Both of them work with familiar materials and build up monumental and
exaggerated structures out of them. While Gupta’s works play up some kind of
domestic passivity, Begum Lipi’s works do speak of public activity. Gupta does
not speak up for or against any class or gender as his works address the
international audience with some sort of exoticism and eclecticism to support
them. In the meanwhile Begum Lipi speaks up for the hurt class of the society;
women in Bangladesh and all over the world. I think, I should leave Gupta there
because he should not be a parameter to judge the works of other contemporary
artists though I myself have recently used this parameter to discuss the works
of another Indian artist. In that case, the promoters of that artist themselves
had drawn the parallel with Gupta, but here in Begum Lipi’s case it is the feel
that you get once you enter the gallery. But then it is a habit that one has to
outgrow.

(Home, two channel video projection by Tayeba Begum Lipi)

‘Reversal Reality’ is a continuation of Begum Lipi’s ongoing
engagement with gender issues and the materials that could be converted into
art. Belonging to a sort of Mona Hatoum school of expressions, Begum Lipi
started off career in Bangladesh as a painter. Soon her interests moved from
the painting materials to other possible materials that could be employed in
the making of art. The move to shift mediums should be hailed as a very decisive
moment in the career of many artists as that particular move in fact makes or
break their careers. Many artists who do installation and assemblages or
multimedia works today had been once proven to be bad at painting and
sculpting. Many illustrious contemporary artists today would shy away from
their former conventional medium works as those just do not reflect the kind of
verve, passion or flamboyance that we see in their works today. Seen against
this context, Begum Lipi’s decision to move from painting to sculpting or
installation must be considered as a very positive move. Begum Lipi is known in
the international art circle not only as an artist but also as an organizer and
curator; she is co-founder of Britto Art Trust and was the commissioning
curator for the Bangladesh Pavillion in Venice Biennale 2011. She has already
got a few museum shows to her credit. And a glance at her previous works says
that she deserves the accolades that she has amassed so far.

(Destination by Tayeba Begum Lipi)

However, when I look at her works at the Shrine Empire
Gallery, I think that activism could sometimes produce bad art; if not bad art,
loud art. The subtlety of expressions, whatever may be the size and scale of
the work in question, is what makes a work of art worth desiring and worth
looking. In Begum Lipi’s presentation here in the show titled ‘Reversal Reality’
that subtlety is lacking in the major works. The smaller works are exceptions
to which I will come back later. The pivotal series of works that justifies the
title of the show is a deliberately drawn parallel between the life of the
artist and the life of a transgender personality; Anonnya. The word meaning of
Anonnya is doubly important because the transgender woman in question was a boy
once and he had a different name. Anonnya is a chosen name after his conversion
into her and the word means ‘Unparalleled’ or unique. Anonnya is unique because
she is different from the artist or from us. What catch the attention of the
artist are the childhood memories. Begum Lipi and Anonnya are contemporaries and
the disparities between her own experiences and Anonnya’s experiences disturb
the artist. Hence, she draws a photographic parallel between their lives; how
he has spent her boyhood days and how she has spent her girlhood days. And
eventually we reach a two screen projection of two videos that run parallel to
each other. In one of the projections we see the artist digging a grave with
her own hands and in the other we see Anonnya speaking of the trials and
tribulations of a transgender woman in this conservative world. The artist
seems to say that social disparities have dug up a chasm between them and now
only the death could level their social status. The artist makes even a pair of
caskets (which is wrongly spelt ‘cascades’) made up of customized steel razor
blades welded together. These coffins are going to be their final abode, which
would eventually equalize them. Even in death, their memories would be hurting
as the caskets are made up of razor blades.

(When the Life Began, by Tayeba Begum Lipi)

The important question that one needs to ask here is how one
could elevate a documentary into a rarefied visual art work within a gallery or
exhibition space. Could a two channel video projection with one channel playing
a documentary and the other playing a performance make it a work of art? Or the
blending should happen in the eyes of the viewer? What happens if the viewer is
so familiar with this kind of queer discourse and does not give much importance
to the performance part? Or what happens if someone is so brash that he/she
does not want to even look at the documentary part of it? For me, a person who
has read the autobiographies of transgender people like Revathy and also has
seen a lot of documentaries and documentary photography on the lives of
transgender people (I would like to cite the works of Abul Kalam Azad and
Chinar Shah in this context), this documentary on Anonnya’s life looks quite familiar.
But when seen it as being played parallel with the grave digging performance of
the artist, I think that gravity of both the acts is reduced to dust. I would
have taken the grave digging act to Shakespearean levels had it been looped
alone. I would have taken Anonnya’s renditions of her life very serious had it
been shown in a single channel projection. I have to say that Begum Lipi’s
video work and the photographic works somehow fail to impress in this context.

(Anonnya's Privacy, work by Tayeba Begum Lipi)

However, when it comes to the smaller works in this show
Begum Lipi does not fail impress or surprise. A couple of works made out of
gold plated brass safety pins welded together into a handbag and a pair of slip
in shoes ( I really do not know what those shoes are called otherwise) are
really eye catching , soothing and meaningful. They are two intimate objects
that women generally use and the golden sheen is not devoid of the threat that
it implies because the safety pins are sharp and are a daily tool of binding
for women (that helps women not only to hold themselves together but also it
becomes handy in poking back at the probing hands in crowded places). Somehow,
looking at these works I am reminded of the works of Jaipur based Surendra Pal
Joshi, who has made curtains and helmets out of customised steel safety pins
(of which the Helmet was on display in the recently concluded India Art Fair 7th
Edition in Delhi). These works of Begum Lipi look more impressive and subtle
than the other feminine objects that she had ‘fabricated’ out of customized
razor blades. These blades are not industrially produced useable blades,
therefore I should say the ‘sharp edge’ is slightly blunt here. The real
sharpness of razor edges had been on display in the works of Sunil Gawde
(Sakshi Gallery) and Anant Joshi (Chemould Gallery) during the boom years. The
razor curtain of Joshi and the razor garland of Gawde were really sharp and
capable of bringing goose pimples to one’s skin. Begum Lipi’s razors, as they
are not the original ones do not convey the sharpness as they should have been otherwise.

(Long Walk by Tayeba Begum Lipi)

A wig made out of fine copper wires, titled ‘Wig’ is a catch
of the show. One is thrown into a sort of confusion whether to see the rest of
the blonde inside the wall or outside the wall. Where has the rest of the body
gone, one may wonder; has she gone inside the wall or evaporated from the wall?
This wig stands as an emblem to all the women both eastern and western who have
been vanishing into thin air even when they are alive. Their presence is not
noticed or even when it is not noticed it is done for wrong purposes.
Internationally blondes are considered to be dumb sex objects and by creating a
blonde wig out of copper wires, Begum Lipi not only has underlined the
vanishing acts of our women but also she has taken the courage to question the
western world’s stereotyping of women into blonde sex objects. In another work,
by now familiar with the narratives of Begum Lipi and Anonnya, I could see the
plaster/fibre cast of the faces of the artist herself and Anonnya. They are
like death mask that we see in the novels of Dan Brown. One would almost look
out for some inscriptions on these masks but what one sees is the blank grey of
death. In the audio track that accompanies the masks play out some initiation
song in Bangla which I am not able to understand.

(The Wig, by Tayeba Begum Lipi)

The show as a whole speaks of life of Anonnya and also
speaks of her death. Her slow death in the hands of the society is resonated in
the life of the artist. She finds a reflection of her own self in Anonnya’s
life and also finds her own death in her death. Here the death of both the
protagonists is a metaphorical one. But it sharply reminds us of our own
deaths. It is almost like looking at two people who have let their lives open
to debate them with the sharpest tools available (as in an Abromovician act).
It hurts when one sees it alone in the deepening gloom of the gallery space. I
wish the Begum Lipi could have reconsidered the projection size and projection
strategy of her video considering the small space of the gallery. Sometimes,
small screen makes sense. Small lives definitely make sense as in the case of
Anonnya but at times it needs Begum Lipi who has made it big out there in the
big bad world. Anonnyas in the world seek agency of people like Begum Lipi,
till they acquire their own mediums of expressions other than clapping,
singing, blessing and cursing. The show is a memento mori; the good things will
perish, so are the bad things, but the vignettes will remain, constantly
telling us to stand and stare, if not for meaning, at least for knowing our own
nothingness.